


Port in a Storm

by FaiaHae, VigilantShadow



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (Podcast)
Genre: AND WEVE TAGGED OUR FIRST SHIP, AU: Coastal, AU: Pacific Northwest, Canon-Typical Violence, Coast Guard Duck Newton, F/F, If you know us, Lighthouses, M/M, Mermaids, Pirate Impersonating Pirate Ned Chicane, Sea Monsters, Theres 4 ships see if you can guess, Water mage Aubrey Little, then you can probably guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:42:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaHae/pseuds/FaiaHae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilantShadow/pseuds/VigilantShadow
Summary: The Amnesty Lighthouse has looked over Kepler and defended it against the changing tides and the creatures that haunt the deep for years. Its two keepers have held out for a long time, but as the abominations become more violent, they'll need a little help.Aubrey, Duck, and Ned will have to do.AKA the AU where the Sylphs are mermaids, Kepler's an island off the coast of Washington State, the abominations are...still bad, and a whole bunch of people are being dragged along for the ride.





	1. Red Light by Morning

The sky was a soft mess of red and orange and pink, stretching above Dani and on the paper in her hands. She could feel the moon rising behind her, could tell the colors would slip away soon, but for now she had time to capture it with the watercolors sitting on the dock. There was a ferry in the distance. She didn’t have the space to add that in. Maybe she would make another copy later, with the dark outline cutting a hole in the clouds.

Everything was still, save the ship making its slow crawl across the horizon and the waves swishing under the dock. The tide was breathing with her. In. Out. In. out. She slipped off her shoes and let her feet dangle over the dock, the cool nighttime water breathing against her feet. In. Out. In. Out.

She could almost feel the moonlight on her back. It would be covered by the clouds, but she could imagine the shape of it, full and white like a pearl. The gate would open soon, and she would sketch its familiar beauty and miss home like she always did. Not near the gate, of course. In her room, from memory. No one went close to the gate anymore, not if they knew what was good for them.

She wondered what would crawl out of it, this month. She wondered if it had already crawled out. The sunset cast a red light over the water. She dipped her brush in the cup beside her and reached for the red paint.

Then, she saw the water begin to undulate. The water was not colored by the sky, but from the bright red of a million fish rushing beneath the surface. They filled the sea to bursting, breaking the surface with their fins and hooked mouths as they rushed the land.

It was August, and the moon was rising full in the sky, and the salmon were coming to breed and die a full month early.

Dani pulled her legs from the water and shut her palette of watercolors, slipping it into her shoulder bag as she stood. Her feet were not accustomed to running barefoot on land, but she couldn’t take the time with shoes. So she winced her way down the rough wood of the dock, and across the rocky sand of the beach, breathing her way through the pain. In. Out. In. Out. The sand chafed at her toes as she reached the stone steps of the lighthouse. Her lungs resented the thought of having to climb so high, but she couldn’t wait for the rusty old elevator to clank its way down to her.

Mama needed to hear about this.

* * *

Aubrey had.....done better shows.

Usually she’d break out the full tank and go escape artist, but honestly, this was a hotel lobby, and there were kids present. It was probably not a good idea to scare them too terribly. So she’d stuck to basics- card tricks, turning bubbles to marbles, showing supercooled water freezing in midair. She’d asked for volunteers, trying to call on the kind-of-hot-in-a-dad-way guy in the back, and he’d pointed at the kids instead.

Aubrey was by the pool, and that should have been fine, it was a good backdrop, but kids were idiots, and when she’d gotten him to handcuff their wrists together, he’d slipped and pulled them both backwards in the water.

Aubrey was used to pulling escape acts underwater, but this  _kid_ certainly wasn’t, and by the way he was thrashing, he couldn’t swim. Shit. Shit. Shit. Stay calm. Stay-

She felt something tug in her chest. There was a call. An answer. The water moved around her, like a palm lifting her, and she felt herself pull the kid along. The water parted over them and held them on its surface.

For a moment, everything was completely still. She was standing on the surface of the water, handcuffed to a ten year old, and there was  _absolutely nothing supporting her what the f-_

Gravity seemed to remember her, but gently this time, and she was lowered in with enough support to swim for the edge.

In a haze, she undid the handcuff, sent the kid back to the party, waved at the crowd when they applauded.

She let things settle down before she climbed out herself, sitting on the edge and wringing out her hair, making a face as a little bit of blue dye came out of it. Shouldn’t have gone for the box dye this month, honestly, but money was tight.

Dr. Tortoise Bonkers PhD finally reached her- he’d probably been walking over since they fell- and, having achieved that, pulled his legs into his shell.

Aubrey snorted.

“Big mood, little guy.”

“I thought you did very well.”

Aubrey nearly fell into the water again, but a hand on her shoulder steadied her as someone crouched next to her. She turned.

“Oh it’s- you.”

Friendly hot dad smiled, absentmindedly scratching at his beard. He looked nervous.

“Call me Barclay. You seem like you’re a long way from home.”

Aubrey blinked.

“Uh, I’m from Oregon, actually, so not- that far.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You-....um. Sorry, this may seem like an odd question, but you’re from....America?”

Aubrey’s eyebrows pulled together.

“I....can’t tell if you’re being like, racist? Because you don’t look the type, but-”

Barclay put his face in his hands, and Aubrey felt genuinely bad for him.

“God, no, sorry, I meant- Earth? Fuck.”

“Are there....other options?”

Barclay lowered his hands and smiled, a touch self-consciously.

“Probably shouldn’t have said that. But you did magic.”

“It’s kinda my job? I mean, I’m not doing a good job of it-”

She thought she heard him mutter  _me either_ but couldn’t be sure-

“-but uh. Stage magician.”

“I don’t mean that stuff. I mean sure, cool job with the bubbles and the supercooled water, but I meant....the real stuff. The pool.”

Aubrey looked into the water, smelled the chlorine.

“It’s....I don’t really know how that happened, honestly.”

“Would you like to find out?”

He smiled, and Aubrey thought she probably shouldn’t be going places with strangers, but she’d just been lifted magically out of a pool.

“Uh, I know kung-fu. For the record. And I carry a knife.”

He snorted, standing and offering her a hand.

“Those are handy things to have, in this day and age.”

She took it.


	2. Disappear into the sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end of chapter for any applicable CWs.

Duck was having what could be rather charitably referred to as a  _bad day._ He’d jabbed himself in the eye trying to get his color contact in (most of the town knew he had heterochromia, but every time he ran into some tourist who ogled him he just wanted to walk straight into the ocean and sit on the bottom for a few hours. He’d given into that impulse a few too many times. Authorities had been called. It was a pain).

Then, of course, he’d burned his goddamn toast and there had been some creepy augury on it that matched the blurry contents of his dream, so he’d tossed that out and gone to Sheetz, and then he’d been late to work. And after passing a long and boring Coast Guard day, coast-guarding, he got a call that some fucking idiot had a fire on the deck of their fishing boat. He was on his way to deal with whatever-the-fuck was happening there, and as he passed by the steepest part of the coastline, he saw a frail looking man with white hair  _fall into the water off a ten foot cliff._

Duck thought that rescuing people should be less annoying, and he jumped into the water with the life-preserver.

At least the poor man had the decency to not be thrashing, though he was shivering violently as Duck pulled him back to the boat. Duck tried to ignore the perverse satisfaction he felt at that. The perfect rescue: not too difficult, but not unnecessary. He passed the man a thermos of tea and hoped it wasn't too gross from sitting in the boat for four hours.

“You doing alright, there?” 

The man’s slight frame was dwarfed by the size of the blanket Duck had gotten him (from his cabin, because shit, the man was shivering like a leaf in the wind). He had on a pair of big red glasses, and Duck was a little confused about how those hadn’t fallen off until he saw the delicate gold chain hanging behind the man’s ears- twisted in with the silvery strands of wet hair that were glossed to his neck.

He looked a bit flushed, and Duck hoped it was embarrassment and not a fever.

“I’m alright, thank you for your timely intervention I.....I am quite anemic. I ...” he sneezed, and Duck tried not to sigh.

“Well, bundle up there and have some tea. I can get you back to shore soon but you’ve....kinda caught me at a bad moment here. I’m on my way somewhere. Do you have anybody worryin’ about you? Do you need to use my phone?”

The man laughed, and something about it sounded a little sad.

“No. No I.....was out for a walk by myself. If I am not interrupting you terribly, I would not mind staying on your boat for a while.”

Something about his tone struck a bell in Duck’s ear. Odd. Like...

It was probably nothing. The man sounded a touch too eager, was all. Maybe he was just a lonely guy.

Duck could sympathize.

“Well, sit tight.” He caught a glint of fire as they rounded the cliff, and sighed. “Just hang out here and I’ll.....be right back.”

* * *

 

Ned didn’t like signing for mail. It never meant anything good.

For one thing, it meant setting his name down on paper, which he hated. Usually he made sure to sign things under fake names, disposable names: credit cards, UPS packages, the picture of Brian Blessed some old woman wanted him to autograph. But Ned Chicane was tied to Kepler, so as long as he was  _in_ Kepler he had to be Ned Chicane.

That brought him to the other thing, which was that he lived on tiny, small-town Kepler Island _,_ which meant the only people that ever tried to talk to him were people that came to see him in person and  _bill collectors._

“What is it?” Kirby asked, jumping up from his desk to come see. It jostled his glasses out of place, which had him halting his momentum to push them back up his nose. He nearly knocked a few cans of RC Cola over as he circled the desk, and by the time he got there Ned had almost processed what the letter said.

“We’re being evicted, my good man,” Ned said, and was proud of the fact that he didn’t sound pissed. He hated sounding angry. It made him seem invested, and that was the first step to giving somebody else the upper hand. Which, he supposed that the piece of paper informing him he had seven days to cough up three months of rent meant he’d  _already_ given somebody the upper hand.

Kirby paled.

“What?” He leaned forward over the letter, almost bumping foreheads with Ned as he did. “That’s...not good.”

Ned sighed.

“No, friend Kirby, it is not.”

“Shit, Ned. We’re gonna need to…” Kirby paused, looking around the Cryptonautica with that look in his eye that meant he was feeling practical. Kirby’s fits of practicality were one of the reasons Ned kept him around, but they also tended to be inconvenient to Ned  _personally._ “You know, we could sell some of this stuff, maybe that’d be enough?”

Ned laughed. Despite his best efforts, it sounded bitter in his own ears. “I found half of this stuff on the shore, Kirby. It’s all just weird fish bones and sea glass. Well, except the mermaid.”

The mermaid, which was the top half of a monkey sewn onto a fish’s tail, stared at him accusingly from the wall.  _That_ he’d stolen when he and Boyd broke into Ripley’s museum in Vegas, half-drunk on adrenaline and whiskey and doing shit for the hell of it. It was kind of a downer to look at, given everything that had happened, but it was also the coolest ocean-themed item he’d had when he landed on Kepler and stumbled into The Cryptonautica.

Kirby followed his gaze up to the mermaid and shivered.

“Uh, I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”

Ned had to agree. He almost mentioned the things he kept in the back room, but half that stuff he didn’t want to part with and also  _very much_ didn’t want Kirby knowing he had.

“Maybe the fish?” Kirby suggested, gesturing to the floor to ceiling tank set against the wall by the ticket booth. The blobfish floating in the tank looked at him mournfully, its fleshy pink lips tugged down into an even deeper frown than usual. “You could sell it to, like, an aquarium? Hey, how the fuck do we even have that, by the way?”

Ned shrugged.

“It was in the tank when I got here.” It would’ve felt disrespectful to sell Bob the Blob. He’d been Victoria’s, and Ned wouldn’t be here if not for her. So he might as well pay Bob’s rent. Besides, he was the only exhibit that wasn’t one hundred percent bullshit.

“Well…” Kirby looked stumped, which was a bad sign. Or, just maybe, a great one. It meant they either had to rely on Ned coming up with an idea that wouldn’t get them arrested - which was unlikely, given that Kepler was a little too small to pull off anything without Sheriff Owens catching wind - or Kirby was about to have a revelation.

Kirby smiled, and Ned knew in this case it was the latter. Thank God. Ned wasn’t sure who he’d be outside of The Cryptonautica, not anymore. Kirby jogged over to the stack of tourist’s pamphlets Ned kept in a drawer for research purposes, digging for a couple seconds before holding one triumphantly above his head.

“You, Ned Chicane, are going to find us the wreck of the S.S. Pacific.”

* * *

Duck thought that had gone....okay. Pigeon had seemed freaked, so he’d yielded enough to let her keep the fire going until she got back to the dock, written a note so she could park her boat without issue, and gotten back on his ship. What he was really worried about what was her friend- she’d said his boat had actually gone down, and that was trouble.

He guessed he wasn’t going to get his guest back home just yet.

He tried to deny that he was at all happy about that.

Well, maybe he was lonely too. He was allowed. He hoped that maybe someday he could have company for reasons other than rescuing a man from drowning and then setting off to try to rescue _another_ man from drowning. Which...was going to get confusing in his report.

“Hey, uh, if you don’t mind me askin’- What’s your name?”

The man smiled from behind his big red glasses.

“Indrid. Indrid cold.”

Something about that name sounded familiar, but Duck brushed it off.

“Well, nice to meet you. I’m Duck Newton.”

“Charmed.”

Duck was about to try to make some kind of terrible attempt at small talk, but a brilliant blue flash cut him off before he could. He sighed. Oh no.

“DUCK NEWTON! THE TIME OF YOUR DESTINY HAS COME!”

“Oh.”

Duck looked up at Indrid, expecting him to be commenting on something inane. People couldn’t....see Minerva. She’d popped up in several very inconvenient roller derby tournaments. At least he’d learned that lesson early.

Indrid wasn’t looking through Minerva, at the skyline.

Even though his glasses, Duck could tell he was looking right at her, his head tipped as though trying to take her in better.

“Interesting. This changes things.”

Minerva seemed to also realize that her presence wasn’t going unremarked, waving a translucent hand awkwardly.

She didn’t know what to say, and for the first time, Duck wondered what Minerva’s life was like on her home world. Not friendly, it would seem.

“Oh, don’t let me interrupt.” Indrid took a sip of tea. “I’m certain you have news of note.”

Duck had a bad feeling about....all of this, really, but before he could explore it better Minerva had turned back to him. She seemed....less enthused.

“Ah- the time approaches! Events have been set into motion you can no longer escape! Raise your- ah. Duck Newton, where  _is_ your chosen weapon?”

Duck sighed.

“I uh. Gave it to a friend. To hold on to.”

Minerva sighed, and it sounded like the crashing of waves.

“Why.”

“He’s.....He’s creepy.”

Indrid made a soft sound of agreement, and Duck felt oddly vindicated, even though he knew he should have other concerns about that.

“He is....your chosen weapon, Duck Newton! You should have spent this time honing your skills! Mastering martial arts! Training!”

“I, uh.” Duck winced. “I did crossfit?”

Minerva sighed.

“And did you master this art of crossed-fit?” 

Duck felt Indrid’s smirk. Dammit, it was easier to lie to Minerva than it was to like...real people. Not that she wasn’t.....real. Was she? Fuck.

He cleared his throat.

“No.”

Minerva brought herself up to her full, seven foot height, and looked like she was about to give him the scolding of his life, but before she could Indrid grabbed Duck’s sleeve.

“Look.”

Duck leaned around Minerva to get a look ahead of the bow and-

Oh.

There was.... Something that had once been a boat. It had been torn to pieces. Duck grabbed his flashlight, but Indrid’s hand stopped him.

“Duck.”

He sounded perfectly calm.

“You’re going to want to take a moment to get a good look before you point that out there.”

Duck did as he was told. 

The water was almost still, the flotsam shifting back and forth almost imperceptibly. Duck scanned the surface, and off to the side- there.

There was a man clinging to a piece of wood, looking terrified.

Duck breathed, and he pointed the flashlight at the water.

For a moment, he saw nothing at all.

And then the darkness of the depths seemed to coalesce, a thousand forms coming together into something dark and seething, and Duck swore and dropped the flashlight in the water. For a moment it lit what looked to be a school of fish in an ugly, bloody red-black, and then the light was gone and the water was starting to move more violently.

“Now.” Indrid remarked calmly, as though asking him about the weather. “Would be the time to flee.”

* * *

 

As it turned out, faking the souls of the drowned dead rising from the shipwreck which had claimed their lives was pretty hard. It might have been less difficult if Amazon Prime delivered to Kepler, but instead Ned had to make do with the supplies he already had on hand.

Which meant he’d had to haul the “hull” he’d nailed together out of broken planks out to the beach, struggle into his wet suit and scuba tank - this would have been easier with Kirby’s help, but _someone_ needed to man The Cryptonautica - and shove it into his small speedboat. And that wasn’t even the hard part.

The  _hard part_ was boating around the coastline and then lugging the hull behind him about a hundred meters toward the entrance of Crooked Bend Cave, a twisting passage of underwater tunnels on the north side of the island. It took a few minutes of swimming through a terrifyingly narrow passageway, but eventually it emptied out as a still pool at the center of a large cavern. Ned was always a little thrown when he made it out of the tunnels and into the open air, but as he struggled out of the water and let his false shipwreck sink down he couldn’t complain.

After yanking off his mask and taking a few minutes to catch his breath, Ned got to work. He reached into the bag he’d slung onto his side, pulling out the glow sticks he’d shoved in there and cracking them open. Then he dropped them down toward the wooden hull, so that the highlighted the waterlogged wood. Soft lights in the dark. Ghosts.

Kirby would be able to make them look even spookier, but even knowing they were fake Ned found them pretty damn eerie. He shivered, only partially because the water had been  _fucking cold,_ and grabbed his camera. He’d have to get back in the water for some of the shots, but he figured he might as well get the ones that didn’t involve being stuck in cold water out of the way first.

The first couple were abysmal, his head lamp causing too much glare off the water to see anything that deep down. He switched it off, dropping himself into pitch blackness. The glow sticks were a lot more effective, and a lot creepier, in complete darkness.

He took a couple more shots, some in focus and some artfully blurred to disguise any possible imperfections, then switched his headlamp back on to properly examine them. They turned out a lot better than he’d hoped. He’d almost be fooled, if he didn’t know that this sort of thing was always fake.

Ned heard a faint splash near the entrance of the cavern and swung his headlamp around. For a moment, it reflected off crystalline eyes, but then their owner squinted and the light flattened out.

“Ned Chicane?”

Ned tried to remember where he’d seen this woman before, blonde and drenched and squinting at him like  _he_ was the one diving in a sea cave without so much as a snorkel.

“Yes, that would be my name, all requisite warnings about wearing it out, etcetera etcetera. You’re.....?”

He kept waiting for her name to occur to him. A moment later it clicked, and he said it the same moment she did.

“Dani! Ah, yes! The artist! Your work hangs in the local coffee establishment. Big fan. Particularly that piece you did of the Bigfoot! ‘Beast by the water’ I believe. I keep inquiring about whether or not it’s for sale and they always wave me off, but you know, I think it’d make a great addition to my little collection of sailor’s stories-”

“....yeah.” Dani was fiddling with something around her neck, and Ned thought he saw something glowing faintly blue in the palm of her hand. “Uh, we can talk about that later, but-”

There was another splash. Several other splashes, actually. Thousands of splashes. Ned jumped back away from the water, turning his headlamp to stare at the mouth of the cave. Or where the mouth of the cave  _would_ be if it weren’t completely clogged by a school of bright red fish.

“What,” Ned said, eloquently. He may not have been in Kepler for that long, but he was pretty sure salmon runs didn’t go to caves which were miles out into the Sound.

“Oh no,” Dani whispered, staring at the cave. Then her head whipped around and she looked at him appraisingly. “Ned Chicane?” She asked, voice deadly serious.

“That’s my name.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Um,” he said. Nice job, Ned. She sighed.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter at this point.”

She reached back to the tie which held her hair back in a tight ponytail. Then she slipped it off her hair and sunk deeper in the water, the long strands spreading like a cloud of golden seaweed around her. Under the dark water he saw her put it onto her wrist.

Wait, how could he see it? His headlamp illuminated a few inches below the water, but below that the visibility was absolute shit. And yet, he could see her as clear as day.

A moment later his brain - which had apparently been in denial - processed why. Dots of light ran up the outsides of her arms and along the sides of her neck, interrupted by...fuck, were those gills? They were either gills, or her neck had been slit on either side in three diagonal lines. Another set of lights flashed down her sides. Her bare sides, he realized, the pale gray skin unfettered by clothing and marked by another set of gills cutting over where her ribs should probably be.

She turned, the arcing fin running down her spine slicing up out of the water as she swam bullet-fast toward the mass of fish.

 _Well shit,_ he thought,  _I must be having a weird dream._ Then,  _This isn’t what I thought a mermaid would look like._

His headlight lit up the crimson mass and Dani’s lithe form as she tore into it. He could barely make out what she was doing, but as her hands and tail and what he thought might be teeth cut into the school it became clear that she was doing  _something._ Dead and dying fish were thrown out behind her, guts torn out as they spasmed and then stilled.

Dani surfaced, face covered in fish blood - and maybe some of her own - smeared across the bright glowing lines which ran down her cheeks. With her mouth open he could see the rows of sharp, thin teeth, too long to rationally fit inside her mouth. Her eyes were wide and white, glinting opalescent in the light of his flashlight. He wondered if she could see.

“Get your gear on and let’s  _go._ ” A fish clamped onto her side, its lower jaw gaping at almost a ninety degree angle. She winced and pried it off.

Ned gulped, wondering what he did to deserve this nightmare as he obeyed her. He slipped on his mask and then jumped in, ignoring the feeling of guts on the few exposed parts of his skin and the way his headlamp did absolutely squat at piercing through the slimy cloud of blood that filled the water. It didn’t take too long to reach Dani, but it  _felt_ like it took forever.

“Stay right behind me,” she said, and once again he wondered how she could speak clearly around those  _teeth_. Then she dove back under the water and yes, it turned out she was in fact mauling fish with her teeth and also some deadly looking claws. Once again, he obeyed, and hoped he’d wake up before he was hit with too many fish corpses.

He still hadn’t when they broke free from the tunnels. Dani continued at her gruesome work until they reached Ned’s boat. He hauled himself up the ladder and saw Dani grasp at it with one arm.

“I need you to tie back my hair, Ned,” she said. He froze. He thought it was justifiable to be a little gun shy about that many sharp things on one person. “ _Please._ ”

Her voice was desperate, and he could see the school turning toward them. So he yanked the tie off her wrist, and when she turned her head he pulled her damp hair back with shaking hands. As soon as it was snug against the back of her skull, a human woman was in front of him again. She smiled thankfully at him with her flat, normal teeth, and climbed into the boat.

Ned chanced a look back at the school. It looked angry. Dani sagged against the inside of the boat, her legs curled underneath her and her bare feet peeking out from her long skirt. Her eyes were screwed up in pain, and he remembered the fish that had clamped onto her. 

He very much didn’t want that to happen to him, so he stumbled over to the engine and gunned it toward the shore.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild/medium amounts of fish gore beginning at "this isn't what I thought a mermaid would look like" and ending at "he still hadn't when they broke free of the tunnels.


	3. Black Skies Turn to Blue

Aubrey thought that everything was going pretty well so far. She’s gotten into a strangers car and been driven a few hours to the coast, and  _so far_ Barclay didn’t seem like a serial killer. He’d had a bag of lettuce on hand for Dr. Bonkers, which was definitely a point in his favor. And despite all the magic and the suspicious behavior he just seemed....nice. They drove through McDonald's and he got her a happy meal when she asked, and shared his fries. When they reached the coast Barclay returned the car (and serial killers didn’t rent cars! Serial killers probably stole cars!) and they walked along the boardwalk about talked about card tricks. By the time they got on the ferry Aubrey was loaded up with coffee and random knick-knacks, and someone had told Barclay he looked “so young to be a father!” and Aubrey had expected him to at least flinch, but he’d just smiled vacantly and said “I get that a lot.” 

“So.” Aubrey interrupted herself mid-tangent. She was leaning back on the seat of the ferry with Barclay next to her, watching his hands as he tried to shuffle one of her decks by shooting a stream of cards from one hand to the other, holding a Frappuccino.

“Yeah?” He looked relaxed, which was a good start.

“How many kids do you have?”

Barclay missed his hand entirely and cards shot out in every direction, several getting picked up by the wind and carried off. Aubrey watched them go, absently. She tended to get the things she dropped in the ocean back, sooner or later.

“I’m sorry, what?!” 

“When that lady earlier assumed you were my dad you didn’t like, deny it or-”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, was that weird?” He scratched his beard, his mouth curling down a little. “I’m just so used to hearing it that it didn’t even occur to me that-” 

“Oh, no! It’s cool. I mean, uh, two cool hipsters with dyed hair, maybe I got it from you or whatever, cool! Just- if you don’t have any kids, then-”

Barclay looked embarrassed, trying to gather up the cards he’d dropped.

“Um, well, it’s a bit complicated.”

“Are there other people like me? Are you like....running some kind of Hogwarts for young adults?” 

Barclay gave her a blank look.

“Hogwarts! From like, Harry Potter? No? Okay uh. Academy for magical youth?” 

He shook his head, shuffling the remaining cards back together to put back in the box.

“Not quite. Um. We do take....refugees, of a kind. Not like you, but your age. It’s complicated, and I think it’s best that Mama explain it, but it’s....less of an academy. More of a...shelter?”

Aubrey hummed, sipping her Frappuccino.

“So there’s a Mama-”

“No it’s.....” He laughed. “Okay, kind of.” 

“....and you’re the-”

“Oh, no. Don’t finish that sentence. Just don’t. No.”

Barclay looked uncomfortable in a way that was rapidly sliding to less than funny, so Aubrey just sat back and enjoyed the sea spray on her face.

“You know, your hands are pretty steady, but what would  _really_ make this card trick great is-”

They were interrupted by a thin, reedy cry. They both twisted, and Aubrey caught sight of a kid on the deck, holding his knee and sobbing. There were little red splashes in between his fingers, and Aubrey winced. She took an absent-minded sip of her drink, found it half melted. An idea occurred to her, and she pulled the lid off.

“Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

She crossed to the kid, crouching in front of him.

“Hey, do you wanna see a magic trick?”

He stopped mid-scream, nodding. She laughed, reaching into her cup and pulling out a handful of blended ice. She took a deep breath, thought about the way that her tricks always worked, even when she found out later that her freezer was broken. She thought about the way the water bent even further than it was supposed to, the way something in her gut tugged when it did.

_Real magic._

_Help me._

The ice in her hand melted, and then it started to spin in a tiny circle. It made a whirlpool as the kid watched, transfixed, and the Aubrey rotated her hands, breathed, lifted. The water moved slowly up from one palm to the other, like a lava lamp.

She was concentrating too hard to pay attention to any incoming waves, and when a wave hit the ferry she flinched, and the water splashed forward across his knee.

“Oh, oops, I’m sorry-”

“Thanks, lady! You made it go away!” 

Aubrey blinked.

“I what?”

The kid pointed at his knee.

The skin was clear, as though it had never been scratched at all.

* * *

 

Dani was in agony. 

It felt like she’d been bitten across almost every square inch of her skin, and something in the bites  _burned_ and almost moved like a living poison. She’d seen those fish, and something about them didn’t look right. They’d moved like puppets, jerky and violent, steered by something other than fins and water. Their eyes had been empty, and they’d tasted like death between her teeth. 

She really hadn’t wanted to trust Ned Chicane, but she was intensely grateful to him now. Both for the help and because he was keeping up a running stream of nonsensical commentary the whole boat ride, but wasn’t letting it distract him from  _flooring it._

“I don’t think we could get much money for Bob the blob anyway, he’s certainly seen better days, much like the rest of us! Not that I miss the days of my wild youth-” 

Dani was startled into a laugh, and she ignored the way that it made her ribs feel like they were tearing at her skin.

“You do, Ned. I’ve known you 20 minutes and I’m sure you do.”

“Ah, you wound me, Dani. I thought we were pals. Bosom friends, if you will.”

“I will  _not._ ”

“Ah, you’ll come around.”

“Sure, Ned.”

Dani saw an unfamiliar boat at the dock as they arrived and let out a long string of curses she was sure she hadn’t consciously decided to vocalize. Ned hummed in agreement.

“That’s a Coast Guard ship.”

“It’s a  _what?_ F-” 

Ned waved her off, still looking  _far too calm._ She wondered if he’d done some recreational substances before he’d left his shop that day, and if he had any left she could have.

“It’s Duck. I tagged his boat last year.” He pointed, and Dani could make out a tiny smiley face spray painted on the bow. She pictured Ned Chicane trying to sneak around the Coast Guard station to spray paint a smiley face, and was taken off guard by the little wheezing laugh that broke out of her chest.

“Yeah, alright. Um, Ned, I don’t think I can-” She shifted, and pain lanced its way up her leg. She moved to set herself down, and nearly screeched when Ned Chicane  _literally swept her off her feet._

“Up you go!”

“Jesus Christ, warn me first!” 

“Would you like me to set you down and try it ag-” The boat tipped dangerously, and something slammed into the back of it. Ned stumbled as the stern hit the dock.

“Nope nope nope out now now now-”

Ned moved surprisingly fast for an older man (and Dani knew she wasn’t as light as she looked) and booked it down the dock. Fast enough that it didn’t occur to Dani to object until they’d reached the door- the back door just swung open so that people didn’t have to use their hands to get through it if necessary and-

“Ned wait-”

Ned went right ahead and  _kicked_ the door open.

And any hope Dani had that the lobby might be empty was dashed  _immediately_ as four people turned to look at her.

Ned hit her leg on the doorframe as he maneuvered her in, so the pain was making things a little hazy, but she thought she didn’t quite recognize everyone in the room. Barclay - looking about 5 seconds from passing out - Indrid? Shit. She hadn’t seen Indrid for years. The man next to him had to be Duck, in his Coast Guard uniform and looking about as panicked as Barclay. And then the last occupant of the room dashed towards them, and Dani’s world narrowed down to a single outline.

A girl, warm brown skin, eyes like chocolate cookies just out of the oven. Her hair was sea-blue, a little faded, the color Dani saw in her paints when she got them just right to echo the sea, except for the undercut on the side where it grew in dark and soft. Dani wanted to run her hands through it. Shit, that was weird. Fuck. The pain was making it hard to keep her eyes focused.

“Oh my god are you okay?” That was Barclay’s voice, definitely, but Dani couldn’t quite get her eyes to adjust to the middle distance. 

“Shit - Ned? Ned FUCKING Chicane?”

“Charmed, I’m sure. Barclay, right? You made me a lovely sandwich once-“

“Oh Jesus what the fuck- Sure? OK-ay? Just- can you put Dani down on the couch, please?”

Dani felt herself moving, saw the lodge in shades of warm and white, heard Ned  _very distinctly_ saying “welcome to my dream, Duck!”

The soft roll of Duck’s distaste in his accent as he said, “Unfortunately, you’re not dreaming, Ned,” almost had her laughing again, but then her ribs started to hurt. She felt the hairband slip, couldn’t quite get her hands up to grab it, and the illusion shifted, lifting and settling on her skin. She felt hands in hers, tried to focus her eyes. In the soft haze, there was blue curls like the waves settling on the beach.

“Can you hold onto me for a minute?”

Dani nodded, breathless from agony, and reached out. She felt her hands connect with bare shoulders, curl into that hair, and she tried not to hold on too tight.

“Okay. Breathe with me. Like the waves, right? In- out- in-”

 _Out, in, out, in-_  

As she breathed, she felt the waves on her skin. She felt her hair lift, dry, the water running from the strands and across her skin. She flinched, for a moment, as she felt water pour into the holes the teeth had left in her skin, it felt like her blood was moving like the waves - out. in. out. in. out.

“I’m letting go for a minute, is that okay?” Dani nodded, not trusting her voice. She blinked, forcing her eyes closed and open, breathing slow. The world was fading back in around her, and the girl leaned away. There was a floating orb of water between her hands, and in it was a twisting  _seething_ ball of black slime that seemed to be trying to launch itself at the sides of the orb. The girl twisted her hands, and the orb made a  _crackling_ sound, almost like fireworks from far away, and the water froze. The black shape in it stopped struggling, and Dani let out a sigh of relief she didn’t know she’d been holding. 

“What’s your name?” She was almost surprised to hear her own voice in her ears. The girl grinned.

“Aubrey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter ACTUALLY by Fae, who had to sprint to class two seconds after finishing lol.


	4. Weight of Living

“Alright.” Duck rubbed his forehead. They were a few hours into whatever the Hell was happening (the first few hours of the rest of his life, he almost thought, but then shoved that idea away). The girl Ned had brought in who’d been bleeding and the other girl had....healed? Was asleep on the couch. The girl with the magic and the blue hair looked about as tired as he felt, and Ned was propped on the side of the couch, looking over nervously every few minutes as though he were making sure the sleeping figure was still breathing.

Duck felt a headache coming on, but was distracted by a light touch on his elbow.

He looked up.

Indrid was at his elbow, still wearing his mirrored red glasses. He had a cup of tea in each hand, and a tiny smile curled across his lips as he offered one to Duck. 

Duck wanted to be unnerved by the timing, but couldn’t bring himself to question a good thing. He took the tea.

“I’d really love some answers,” he managed, losing all his steam. He wanted to be furious, but he just....didn’t have the energy. The chase, the injuries, seeing Minerva again. 

“Me too,” The girl mumbled- actually, she’d introduced herself earlier. Duck had half heard it. Audrey?

Ned just nodded.

“Don’t worry,” Indrid mused. “You have two minutes, give or take, before the proprietor of this establishment gets down from the lighthouse and comes charging in to yell at us.”

Duck took a deep swig of his tea.

“Yell at us for....what, exactly?”

The man smirked, and Duck only wondered a little bit if his eyes crinkled at the corners or not. Hard to tell if a guy was cute under those glasses.

“Oh, a number of things, I would imagine. She’ll assume you all being here is my fault. Failing that, Barclay’s.”

The other man in the room- Duck hadn’t been paying much attention to him in the armchair by the fire - shifted to look over at them.

“Is this your doing, Indrid?” 

Indrid let out a little snort.

“I’m damage control. Nothing more.”

The front door slammed open, and there stood the imposing figure of a woman in a long, leather duster. Duck recognized her, vaguely, in the way he recognized most people on Kepler that he didn’t talk to. Well, maybe a little less vague than  _that,_ given most of the people on Kepler that he didn’t talk to  _also_ didn’t go sweeping around in a leather duster. Or get called  _Mama_ by adults almost her own age.

“You,” she said, pointing directly at Indrid. Her voice was controlled, even, in the way of somebody who wouldn’t be controlled or even in about a minute and a half. “What the hell are-”

She herself mid-sentence, her dark eyes flitting over toward the couch.

“Shit, is that Dani?” She asked, an undercurrent of worry threading through the stony anger that had been in her voice a moment ago. She didn’t wait for an answer before striding over, sparing Ned a narrow-eyed look before she knelt down by the couch and rested a soft hand on Dani’s shoulder.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Annie...Allie... _Aubrey_ piped in. “I, uh, pulled out the nasty black stuff that was in her cuts.”

Mama looked relieved and a little confused, though Duck only noticed either of those two emotions because they made him feel less like he was going to get his ass kicked. She stood again, running a hand through her short, black hair.

“Thanks for that, then,” she said, making her way over to where Aubrey and offering a hand. This put her only a few strides away from Duck and Indrid, which made Duck feel ever so slightly nervous. “You new outta Sylvaine? Didn’t see them pushing anyone out of a whirlpool lately.”

“Uh,” Aubrey replied, looking just a little panicked.

“Huh,” Indrid cut in, deadpan. “That’s strange. I could have sworn there weren’t any futures where you didn’t yell at me.”

Mama snorted, like she’d been trying for a laugh but could only manage “angry bull that was about to go rushing directly at them.”

“I’m gonna fucking yell at you, Indrid. But as much as that’s gonna be the most cathartic thing I’ve done all week I have  _priorities._ Thought you might appreciate that.”

Indrid flinched and then withered into himself. Duck could’ve sworn that the glint of light on his glasses was somehow...mournful. Duck had half a mind to cut in and say  _Listen Mama, you could probably break me like a twig even if I **am** some chosen supernatural warrior or whatever, but that don’t give you a right to go making people look like that._

Indrid’s hand curled around the sleeve of his jacket, and when he looked over Indrid shook his head solemnly.

“Uh,” Aubrey repeated, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot.

“She’s not from Sylvaine.” Barclay rescued her, and she flashed a grateful smile at him. “Or at least she says she isn’t, and...I don’t think she’s lying Mama.”

Mama looked thoughtful, brow furrowing and mouth tugged down at the edges. Duck was too far away to be sure, but he thought that she must look thoughtful or at least worried a lot of the time. The expression fit too well into the fine wrinkles that marked her face.

“Well, I guess this is just that kind of day,” she muttered. “I had the  _feeling_ it was gonna be that kind of day.”

Indrid hummed.

“I have a question,” he asked. “Is this one of the timelines where you punch me in the face? I want to prepare for that.”

Duck screamed just a little on the inside. He’d been hoping to finish up his duty, go home, and ignore the fact that his life was sad and boring while his cat sat on his lap. Sure, this situation wasn’t _completely_ terrible, Indrid would’ve drowned if he hadn’t been around, and seeing Ned out of his depth like this was pretty novel. But man, ignoring the fact that his life was sad and boring sounded _awesome._

“Only if you keep saying fool things like that, Indrid,” she said, voice low.

“Now hold on.” The fact that he didn’t really want to be here aside, Duck had to step in. He was Coast Guard, after all, which made him almost 100% law enforcement aside from the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to write people dock citations.

“I wouldn’t suggest cutting in on things you don’t understand.” Indrid’s grip on Duck’s sleeve tightened. He didn’t look afraid, or even all that upset. Just resigned.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that’s why I’ve  _gotta_ cut in, Indrid,” Duck insisted. He took a deep breath. He  _hated_ conflict, and yet here he was. Minnie’d be so fucking proud. “I’d like to know the score before a fistfight starts up.”

Mama’s jaw tightened. The expression on her face wasn’t quite a sneer, on account of a sneer had a kind of malicious implication to it. She wasn’t malicious, she was just...he hadn’t figured out what kind of angry she was, but he thought it might’ve been  _hurt._ Somehow, he got the feeling  _that_ wasn’t a question he could get away with asking.

“Indrid and...the rest of us over here at Amnesty had a bit of a  _disagreement_ about priorities, couple years back.”

“I told you, Mama, I’m -”

“You say sorry and I  _will_ deck you Cold.” She didn’t narrow her eyes at Indrid. They were hard enough she didn’t need to.

“You have to understand that -” He cut himself off with a wince and finished alongside Mama.

“I understand fine. I just think you’re an asshole.”

Duck blinked. Yeah, sure, he could envision somebody as frankly-kind-of-spooky as Indrid pulling off talking at the same time as somebody else. But how the hell’d he predicted she was gonna say _that?_ Oh. Wait. Shit. Duck’d forgotten, like he sometimes did when things around him got excessively not-normal, that his life wasn’t normal.

“You read minds or something like that?” He asked. Indrid smiled, and it looked a bit ugly.

“Something like that.” His eyes flicked back over to Mama. “Is this a timeline where you hit me?”

“Hey! So! Can we talk about the thing that almost killed Dani, or are we going to just spend the rest of the night deciding whether to punch someone?”

Duck had, with the heaviness that settled in the air, forgotten Ned and Aubrey were in the room. She was biting her lip. He could tell from how chapped it was that she bit her lip a lot. As they turned to her she grinned nervously.

“I mean, if the answer is that we  _are_ going to spend the rest of the night deciding whether to punch someone, I might, uh. Step out? I don’t really want to weigh in on that. But uh. I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“Seconded!” Ned said quickly. He looked...really awkward. Barclay looked uncomfortable in a different way, like somebody was pulling a bandaid off his hairy arm very, very slowly.

Mama seemed to notice this too. She breathed out between her clenched teeth, a soft hiss as she looked Indrid up and down.

“Yeah,” she said, as if trying to force herself into accepting that course of action. “Let’s do that.” Then she reached forward and put one finger to Indrid’s frail chest.

“If you let this go the same way as last time,” she warned, “I’m not just kicking you out of my house.”

Indrid stared down at her hand, expression unreadable.

“I wasn’t intending to.”

* * *

Ned was slowly but surely realizing that he was not, in fact, asleep. This was a fairly unpleasant realization, as realizations went, so for the most part he was trying to stay at least emotionally removed from....whatever the Hell was happening in the rest of the room. He’d spoken up in favor of not a fistfight, because he’d had enough excitement today to get him through the next couple years of living in this  _shithole_ town. He rubbed his ring finger, reflexively, and took a deep breath. He remembered craving excitement. He....had some of that rush, old and familiar and addictive, on the boat running from the  _thing_ in the water. Dani had appreciated his monologuing more than Boyd used to, at least.

But here in the lobby, things were settling down into his skin. Teeth and black acid and water and magic. Fins and blood and the bitter taste of shame on his tongue. Dani had been hurt trying to protect him, he was almost sure now that she’d only come into the cave looking for him when his fool-ass had left his boat outside. And here he was, without so much as a scratch, when she’d revealed her secret and thrown herself into danger to protect  _him._

Ned thought the least he could do was listen and maybe discourage anyone from....duking it out. At minimum, it would wake Dani, and she needed the rest.

Mama seemed to come to a decision and sighed.

“Lock the door, Barclay.”

Barclay got up off the couch, crossing the room in a few long strides. He seemed nervous, and that was not a good look on a man that tall.

The lock clicked and Mama’s posture shifted, some of the tension bleeding out of her. More than anything else, she looked tired. Ned could relate. He couldn’t remember feeling this tired. Maybe some of the all night stakeouts, but he hadn’t been alone for those.

Well maybe he wasn’t alone now, but he felt like he was.

“So. I’m assumin’ you’ve all seen some weird shit today, on account of I’m trusting none of my people…” She paused. “Or Indrid would drag you here otherwise.”

“I can do magic!” Aubrey declared, enthusiastically. Ned would have believed she’d gotten over her worry, except for a little bit of a tremble in her voice. Hell, if she was this good at her age she’d be a _master_ once she got older. “Other than that, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on!”

“Indrid and I almost got eaten by a bunch of, uh…” Duck frowned.

“Murderous fish?” Ned finished.

“Murderous  _salmon,_ ” Duck clarified. “Now, I don’t know  _everything_ about fish…” He trailed off again. “Wait, no, I know about ninety percent of things about fish. And uh, that ain’t natural.”

“No, it ain’t.” Mama sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Shit. I didn’t think I’d be explaining this situation to people again. There’s a...well, the first thing you need to know is there’s...worlds other than this one.”

“What, like other dimensions?” Aubrey asked, looking even  _more_ enthusiastic. Ned wished he still thought he was dreaming.

“More like another, uh, planet?” Barclay cut in. “An, uh, underwater one.”

“It’s connected to here by a gate. Moves around every once in a while, but at the moment it’s out in the tide pools.” Mama added. Which, Ned didn’t always have the most situational awareness, at least not when situations didn’t involve him, but he didn’t  _think_ he’d seen a gate to another planet out by the tide pools.

“Ned is going to ask why he hasn’t seen it,” Indrid said out of nowhere. He turned to Ned, who really wished he could see Indrid’s eyes. “You can’t see it unless you know it’s there.”

Ned nodded, wondering if he should pretend that made any sense.

“Alright, let’s pretend that makes any sense,” Duck said. Ned  _knew_ he liked Duck Newton. As much as he could bring himself to like an officer of the law, given his reputation.

“You just saw a whole bunch of evil zombie salmon attacking a boat, Duck. I assume  _none_ of this makes sense.”

Duck squinted a little bit, looking like he wanted to argue with Indrid. But he was obviously just as stumped by that as Ned.

“Okay, okay, so, invisible gate, magic planet...maybe I’ve just had, like, a day longer to process this all than Ned and Duck but um, that doesn’t bother me as much as…” She gestured to Dani.

“Ah, you mean the fact that this young lady is a mermaid?”

Ned knew very well that wasn’t what Aubrey meant. But he felt like it was, just maybe, very  _very_ important to this whole conversation, and that it might get bowled over by the whole giant swarm of fish thing. Which was also, of course, very distressing.

“Wait, she’s a  _mermaid?”_ Aubrey looked  _delighted._ Ned decided then that he liked her, as well.

Out of the corner of Ned’s eye, he saw Indrid hide a smile behind his hand, and Duck’s cheeks get a bit pink. He shuffled that thought into the deck of cards to play against Duck in case he ran afoul of the coast guard. Then he frowned, as Aubrey’s words sank in a little bit.

“Didn’t you, ah...see?”

He’d definitely seen gills coming in and out of existence as Dani had thrashed, the black ink coming out of her wounds. Aubrey looked  _genuinely_ disappointed.

“No! I mean, I saw  _something._ But I was a bit...focused.” She tossed the ball of ice up and caught it again, and Ned couldn’t hold back a flinch as his mind visualized the orb shattering and letting...whatever that stuff was out.

Mama flinched too, but hid it just a little better. Aubrey’s hands stilled, and she looked a little guilty for a moment, until the cheer took back over.

“Uh, mermaids! That’s....that.” Ned could almost hear the start of an aborted H sound, and strongly suspected that Aubrey had to resist saying hot. Indrid made a sound that was almost a laugh and covered it with a cough, and the air was less tense for a moment, before Mama shifted and sighed.

The air grew heavy again, and it was Barclay that finally broke under the weight.

“I’m sorry we’re not, you know, explaining all that much.” He winced under the glare Mama gave him at that, but continued. “It’s not that we’re...trying to hide anything. You all saw what was out there, it’d be pointless to lie to you. We’ve just....lost a lot of people to these monsters. Every two months something happens- maybe cuz of the tides, or the moon, and a monster enters the water. We keep fighting them back, but it’s just been me and mama for a long time.”

Ned definitely saw Indrid step a little closer to Duck, and saw Duck bump his shoulder. A reassurance.

“-We’ve all done what we thought we could do. But it hadn’t been enough. And there’s- ah, damn, there’s  _politics._ It’s not just about monsters, but about mermaids like Dani, and...other things. Other people.” Barclay looked profoundly uncomfortable. “It’s not all that neat and tidy. But we need help. We can’t kill these things alone, Dani almost....”

He choked on the words, sticking his thumbs in his belt loops and trying to calm down. He took a deep breath, letting it wheeze a little on the way out. Next to Ned, Aubrey spoke up.

“You need help.”

Mama huffed out a laugh.

“Yeah. We need help. Whatever we can get.”

Ned glanced up at Duck just as Duck glanced up at him, and they shared a moment of mutual discomfort. But Duck looked away, toward Indrid, and Ned found himself turning back to the couch. Dani was curled around a throw pillow, her hair tossed out and ragged with salt against the dark blue fabric of the couch. The blanket lifted and fell with her breathing, and Ned found himself nearly sick with relief that he’d done  _enough._ Just once, he’d done enough.

“I’ll do it.”

There was no other possible answer.


	5. Plenty of Fish In the Sea

Aubrey didn’t know what to expect from her first day in a top secret monster hunting organization, but going fishing wasn’t it. Yet here she was, seated between a Coast Guard- Duck, she knew his name was Duck on account of it was a ridiculous name and she was great at names when they were ridiculous - and Dani. She remembered Dani’s name on account of. Well. Dani was cute, and Aubrey was weak for cute girls. Ned Chicane - she was shaky on his first name being Ned, but she knew his last name was Chicane on account of that was  _also_ kind of a ridiculous name - stood a ways off, staring at a cooler full of meat chunks skeptically.

“So, I may not be an expert on fish, but…” Ned picked up a piece of chicken, dripping with blood, “I’m fairly certain that salmon don’t often indulge in poultry.”

“I am,” Duck replied, narrowing his eyes at his fishing line as it drifted back and forth in the tide, “and uh. They don’t. Hey, why are we doing this again?”

That question was directed toward Dani, who’d been watching her own line intensely since dropping it into the water. Dani said nothing, so Aubrey chanced tapping her shoulder. Dani jumped a little, eyes widening, and then smiled sheepishly. Aubrey was very,  _very_ weak.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“Was wonderin’ why we decided to try ‘n fish for a kinda fish that only eats shrimp ‘n plankton ‘n shit with meat.”

“Well, I’m not shrimp or plankton, and they seemed perfectly happy to try and eat  _me_.”

Duck considered that a moment, and then shrugged.

“Fair enough.”

The cool morning was starting to stretch into a warm afternoon, and Aubrey had to keep reminding herself that it would be  _ill-advised_ to dangle her feet into the water. She shivered as she thought of the bite marks that still marred Dani’s arms and legs, the bandages peeking out from her three-quarter sleeves. She wasn’t an expert on fish, either, but she didn’t think salmon were supposed to be able to do  _that._

Of course, thinking about the bandages on Dani’s arms meant thinking of Dani, which meant she ended up looking at Dani. She was wearing one of those floppy straw sun hats, which unfortunately blocked a lot of Aubrey’s view of her face.

Dani must have sensed her watching, because she turned Aubrey’s direction. She smiled, exposing teeth that were a little sharp and making her light blue eyes crinkle around the edges. Aubrey founder herself getting distracted in the strands of gold hair that escaped out from her loose ponytail and curled around her face.

“Hey,” Dani said.

“Hey,” Aubrey replied. Very smooth. She could feel Dr. Tortoise Bonkers, PhD wriggle in her lap, and couldn’t tell whether he was trying to wingman her or mock her.

“So, uh, how are we supposed to get back up the cliff again?” Ned asked, startling Aubrey just as she and Dani had started to stare into one another’s eyes. She tried not to frown at him  _too_ hard.

“Oh, if we hook ourselves back up to the ropes Barclay will yank us back up,” Dani replied. She brushed the loose hair behind her ear, casting a glance up the cliff. “He’s, uh, really strong.”

“That his magical sylph power?” Duck asked, still not taking his eyes off the water. Dani snorted. It was a very good snort. Aubrey was very, very,  _very_ weak.

“He’s...it’s a power he has, yes. His power is that he’s very strong. And uh. He can cook, but that’s not magic or anything.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Shit, unless it is. I should ask him.”

“Do.....other people have magical cooking powers?”

Dani gave Aubrey a look of pure relief, and Aubrey wasn’t exactly sure what  _about_ , but she smiled back at her anyway.

“No, actually, most of us don’t have....magic, really. Super strength, I guess. But not magic like you do.”

Aubrey was genuinely startled by that, forgetting her confusion.

“You don’t?”

Dani shook her head.

“We have different bodies, and abilities that go along with them, if you count breathing underwater as a power when it comes from having gills. And Indrid has....well, a gift.” She looked pained for a moment. “It’s a blessing and a curse, I think. It’s like...if you knew someone you care about was going to die, you’d think you’d want to know. But if you know, then you might end up spending the whole day trying to fight it and not spend any time with them, or you might spend the whole day with them and then wonder if there was something you could have done. When Indrid doesn’t tell us, he just....takes the blame. He figures it’s easier to hate him than to hate ourselves.” 

Aubrey thought, for a moment, about a boat sinking. She thought about that morning with her mother, sitting on a dock and laughing as she kicked her bare feet in the water. The hang of her mother’s hair across the dark skin of her shoulders.

She wondered- if she’d known it was her last morning with her mother, would she have done it any differently?

It was bittersweet, to realize that the answer was no.

“Yeah. I think I get it.”

They were quiet again, a little less comfortable than before, but then Dani scooted over, pressing her shoulder against Aubrey’s and dropping her head on her shoulder. It felt so natural that it took Aubrey a moment to realize that she should be  _panicking._ But the sun was warm, and the water was glittering, and Dani’s head fit perfectly into the space between her shoulder and her neck.

And then the water started.....roiling.

Aubrey sighed. It’d been such a nice day.

“Well, shit.” It wasn’t exactly descriptive, but it was also pretty much the most relatable thing Duck could’ve possibly said.

Aubrey fell over backwards, yanking her feet out of the water, Dani climbing up much more smoothly next to her. 

“Okay!” Ned’s usual cheer sounded a bit strained.

“That’s one theory confirmed!”

Aubrey grinned, getting to her feet. “Should we try two for two?”

Dani opened her mouth to reply, but before she could a giant tendril of water leapt from the water, seething with fish. She froze for half a moment, then tackled Aubrey off the dock as it came down where they were standing. For a single, terrifying moment they were falling, and then they hit the water.

* * *

Duck swore, running toward the end of the dock as the mass of fish shifted toward where he could see the bright blue flash of Aubrey’s hair.

“Hold down the fort Ned, I gotta go after them-”

“Wait, Duck- catch!”

Duck turned on his heel, catching the silver object instinctively out of the air. It shifted at his touch, elongating, shifting in the afternoon glow from silver to gold.

 _“Hello Duck Newton.”_ said the trident.

Duck groaned.

“Ned, why did you bring- We are having  _words_ about this when I get back!”

“Did your trident just talk?!”

“Not the time, Ned!”

“ _I think it is the right time to discuss your abandonment of me, Duck. Newton.”_

“We can discuss it when we’re  _fighting_ , Beacon.” Duck hissed, and he dove.

For a moment, the water seemed completely serene around him, the cloud of fish sitting perfectly still in the water. Behind him, he could hear Aubrey assuring Dani she was alright, their voices carrying with crystal clarity.

“Aubrey, take her and run.”

“ _Duck-”_

Whatever Beacon was going to say was drowned out by the rush of a thousand fish moving at once, and it took Duck another second to realize that he had  _horribly miscalculated and was going to die_.

The cloud of fish closed around him, and he felt teeth latch onto his legs and his back as he spun Beacon in a wide arc and tried to keep them off of him. His vision was gone completely- obscured by masses of fish and the thick shadows that seemed to cling to their skin- the ones that were starting to move across his skin like slime and-

And he saw something else.

A flash of a red and white tail.

He only saw it a moment- the cloud disturbed and reformed even tighter around him, but as he raised Beacon again to ward them off he saw a blur of white hair and warm sandy skin, and there were arms around him.

He was launched backwards out of the cloud and into the open water, and he blinked the shadows out of his eyes and clung tight to Beacon.

Indrid.

Only, his glasses hung down from a chain around his neck, and his eyes were red- his white hair curled back in the water behind him as he shot back toward the open water. Red and white.

Indrid’s hair drifted in the water behind him. His ears tapered off into long fins, pushed back against his head as he fought the dark cloud in front of him. And then they banked, coasting along the shoreline, and Duck caught the flash of movement from his vantage point, Indrid’s arms around his waist, and over Indrid’s shoulder-

A long, powerful fin- red and white, with crystalline color, moving fast, and Duck realized as though from a great distance that it was the same color as Indrid’s ears, which, of course it was, it was Indrid’s fins, because Indrid had fucking fins, Indrid was a  _fucking mermaid what the fuck_. “I think.” Duck managed. “That I’m going to pass out.”

Indrid said something that might have been ‘please don’t,’ but it was too late, because the sane, rational part of Duck’s mind had had enough- and everything went black.

 


End file.
